Questions about swath grazing?

[wilagro]

Last winter one of my neighbours tried his usual swath grazing on his sandy farm. Even with a 28 foot swath it was terribly scanty and when the snows came and the cattle couldn't find the swathes...he ended up feeding bales anyway. If the cows can't find the swath what is the point in wasting good feed?

Mother nature can be a cruel teacher sometimes.

[kato]

We figure we save a couple of thousand dollars a year on fuel by grazing corn. Our feeling is that why should we pay someone to cut it and haul it to the yard, and then pay for fuel to feed them, and fertilizer for the corn. We'd rather let the cows go and get their own darn corn, and then they can leave a pile of free fertilizer right out there in the field while they are at it.

We still start calving at the beginning of February, just like we always have, but our cows only actually spend Feb to mid April in the yard, 8 weeks total. Best of both worlds, in our situation. The corn carries them from the end of October, when they come home from pasture, right up to a week or so before calving.

[farmers_son]

I found this link:

Swath Grazing in Western Canada An Introduction
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex9239!OpenDocument&Click=

Research at Lacombe showed barley swath grazing averaged 2.47 cows per acre over a period of 7 years. The swath grazing had a net advantage of $134 per acre over conventional baling green feed with subsequent winter feeding in a yard.

[per]

There are better grains to seed than straight barley for the job as well. When you go to swath it and it is too light to make a decent windrow (never really happened here yet) then a new plan like baling needs to take over. There are no wrong questions, just bad decisions. It is hard however to get it right all the time. We ran into conditions this year not encountered and windrowed with to small of a unit resulting in mechanically feeding bales for much of the winter. That is why a plan B needs to be available. If I always fed bales then plan A would have worked.